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A small group of Pomona residents protest for a civilian oversight commission to address ongoing issues with the Pomona police in front in the Pomona Police Department on Monday, April 1, 2019. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Jurors began deliberating Tuesday in the federal trial of Pomona police Sgt. Michael Neaderbaomer, who is accused of obstructing justice and lying to the FBI during an internal probe into the arrest of a 16-year-old boy at the Los Angeles County Fair in 2015.

Courtroom benches were filled Tuesday during closing arguments — one side with Neaderbaomer’s relatives, friends and Pomona police officers; the opposite end, with Pomona residents and activists interested in the case and employees with the FBI and United States Attorney’s Office.

Jurors hadn’t come to a verdict by day’s end and were to reconvene Wednesday morning.

Neaderbaomer, then a detective in the department’s internal affairs bureau, was called to investigate the county fair arrest after the boy’s mother, Erain Aguilar, filed a complaint in 2015, saying that police had used excessive force when arresting her son.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors have leaned on voicemails Neaderbaomer left with Erain Aguilar and secretly recorded conversations, in-person and over the phone, between the officer and FBI Agent Anne Wetzel.

One voicemail, from Oct. 6, 2015 , was left by Neaderbaomer on Erain Aguilar’s phone after the family had decided to retain legal counsel. In that voicemail, Neaderbaomer could be heard refusing to speak with the family’s attorney. He said he would only interview 16-year-old Christian Aguilar alone, and not in the presence of their attorney or his mother. Neaderbaomer also said that he had a video of Aguilar punching officers before his arrest at the county fair.

Prosecutors called the voicemail an effort to intentionally intimidate Erain Aguilar and her son, discouraging them from coming forward to take part in the internal investigation.

In recordings from seven months later, Neaderbaomer is heard telling Agent Wetzel a different story, saying that it was Erain Aguilar who refused to speak with him. When asked later if he had left a voicemail saying that there was a video of Christian Aguilar punching officers, he said he did not. The government’s charges of lying to the FBI rest on these discrepancies.

“He turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, and the lied to the FBI to try and cover it up,” said one of the prosecutors, Donald Tunnage of the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.

Reverend Evan Bunch speaks in the lobby of the Pomona Police Department as Lt. Eddie Vazquez steps away and lets him speak as a small group of Pomona residents protest for a civilian oversight commission to address ongoing issues with the Pomona police on Monday, April 1, 2019. Bunch is holding a photo of three Pomona officers who faced criminal charges for their involvement in the violent arrest of a teenage boy at the 2015 Los Angeles County Fair. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Neaderbaomer did make mistakes in his investigation and subsequent statements, but none of it was meant to deceive the government, said Vicki Prodberesky, the defense attorney for Neaderbaomer to jurors in her closing arguments. She has long said that perhaps Neaderbaomer simply misspoke or could not remember voicemails that he had left seven months earlier. In testimony, Prodberesky established the premise that the FBI’s investigation into Neaderbaomer was full of holes and assumptions, while his own investigation was unbiased and within department policies.

Why did Wetzel secretly record Neaderbaomer, why didn’t she confront him directly about the voicemails, why didn’t she play the voicemails for him and give him a chance to clarify his words, Podberesky asked rhetorically during her closing arguments.

Prosecutors asked the jury to view Neaderbaomer’s words literally.

“You don’t need to find intent … It doesn’t matter why he lied to the FBI — it matters that he did,” said Frances Lewis, attorney with the United States Attorney’s Office.

Within the local community, some Pomona residents demanded the dismissal of Jensen and Hutchinson at a City Council meeting in January. Activists have also called for the formation of a civilian oversight commission meant as a watchdog for police. Some are even advocating for a group with subpoena power and the ability to discipline, hire and fire officers. A group of activists and Pomona residents protested at the Pomona Police Department on Monday in support of the changes. Some members from this group were present during trial Tuesday.